All posts by mauriziogeri

“It took us seven generations to create this mess” said Manitoba Senator Murray Sinclair, one of the three Commissioner of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to explain the 150 years of Canadian history. “Probably it will take seven more generations to fix it”, said Kimberly Murray, the Executive Director of that same Commission, referring to the next 150 years of Canada.

Canada is known in the world for being one of the most diverse and pluralistic society, with one-fifth of Canadians born elsewhere, being also a gigantic country with a small population of 35 million people, always in search of immigrants. In 1971, Canada was the first country in the world to adopt “multiculturalism” as an official policy, considered every Canadian citizen equal regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation. But one thing are the laws and structures and one thing the application of those policies on the ground. Actually, the recent celebrations for the 150 years since Kanata-Canada foundation have sparked a lot of criticism from civil society organizations, especially the ones representing the First Nations, saying that in reality this country history is based on colonization, segregation and even genocide, not only “cultural genocide” as the Truth and Reconciliation commission defined it[1].

I had the possibility to participate in June to an international congress on humanities and social sciences, organized by Ryerson University in Toronto, a very intercultural city (where also half million Italians reside, the biggest Italian community outside Italy). At the conference, several panels were organized to talk about the past and the future of Canada, with important names like John Ralston Saul or Mohamed Fahmy. One of the persons that spoke in one of the panels was Kimberly Murray, who I had the possibility to interview after the conference, and who told me a little about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Commission, that worked between 2008 and 2015 was part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, an agreement between the government of Canada and almost 90 thousand Native Canadians recognized as victims, the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history. The Commission showed how for many decades indigenous children belonging to First Nations or Inuit or Métis (Mixed) were removed from their families and placed in the Canadian Indian residential school system, in schools operated often by the Christian churches, mostly Roman Catholic, where they were abused physically, emotionally and sexually. Over 7 thousand kids died. Recently the Canadian prime minister Trudeau even asked Pope Francis to apologize for the history of the schools and “move forward on a real reconciliation.”[2]

But the story is not finishing with the schools. Special hospitals were also created for indigenous people, with a racial segregation organized to isolate indigenous people from the settlers. Like in the residential schools these hospitals were places of abuses until the end of the 20TH century. Actually, there are complains that the current health system continues to treat indigenous people differently from the others, with a discrimination that substituted the segregation. Also, through the foster care and adoption system, thousands of indigenous children were taken from their homes and then adopted by non-Indigenous families both in Canada and abroad, during the 1960s, the infamous “60s scoops” as it has been defined, an attempt of “cultural genocide” as the Commission defined it.

The agreement reached with the tens of thousands of indigenous people, costed to the Canadian government $2 billion compensation package for the victims. But it is not only money that can repay the suffering and the story of colonization and segregation. Unfortunately, only few people have been convicted for the deaths in the schools but the attempted genocide, cultural or physical, that British and French colonies before, and Canada and the US after, did to the indigenous people of North America is something that cannot be erased from history. That is why the 94 Calls to action of the Commission ask for changes in educational programs, increase funding for Aboriginal languages, address the lack of health services available to indigenous communities etc. Murray said that these recommendations have started to be implemented at community and local level but not at national one, and some of the recommendations will have hard time to be implemented. This is the case for example of the application of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people, that require prior consent by the indigenous people before the construction of infrastructures on the indigenous land, as Canada’s Supreme Court has not recognized this consent standard yet (very important with the recent protest for the constructions of pipelines in North America[3]).

Many other countries have stories of genocide and not all of them has recognized that. But the recognition of a genocide at the foundation of a nation is the only way to come to terms with our history and get the legitimacy in front of the international community. It is a showing of strength not of weakness.[4] And actually, the US should follow the example of Canada, as it never had any process of healing and reparation, either economic or spiritual, and less a Truth and Reconciliation Commission neither for the Indian American genocide or for the African American slavery and segregation. And today we can see the consequences with the still discrimination and racism towards Indian Americans and African Americans.

Awareness of the past, and acknowledge of the suffering, is the first step for a real “truth and reconciliation” with our own past and this is the path that Canada should take to build a better future. It will be good for Canada and it will be good for many other countries, that will look up at Canada as an example.

Will the year of 2017 be remembered in history as the year in which the US, willing or not, passed the baton as the world leader to China, exactly one century after it took it entering the First World War? Actually, whether we like it or not, the baton as first world economy was already going to be passed soon. But the US officially withdrawal from the 21st century world order, abdicating from the role of cornerstone of that order, with Trump “America first” exceptionalism and retrenchment, could make space for a new leader in the 21st century: China. From the leadership of a thalassocracy (sea power) like the US it seems we are passing to the leadership (or at least co-leadership) of a tellurocracy (land power) like China (if in the future together with another tellurocracy, the EU). Two events could have marked this passage in the last days: the launch in Pekin on May 14 of One belt one road initiative, in which no Western high leadership accepted to participate (most of the countries sent low level representatives) apart the Italian Prime Minister (being Venice, from Marco Polo Silk Road remembrance, included in the project), and the American withdraw from Paris Agreement on Climate Change on June first, an agreement made after many years of discussions by the UN, and especially suited for the US. But already with the US retreat from TPP and the EU new defense projects the cards started to be reshuffled.

The first event is especially important because represent a development strategy proposed by China based on cooperation between 68 Eurasian countries for the creation of the land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the oceans-based “Maritime Silk Road”. It is a major plan for the next decades and is not only referred to infrastructures in order to make countries growth before to trade with them. It is also an attempt to alleviate the poverty and insecurity of these countries all together, because global challenges require global response. As Xi Jinping said: “the world must unite like a flock of geese”.

The second event, is especially important because independently from the fact that in 4 years a new President could change again the decision (this is the blessing and curse of democracy) the US lost the most important element of a leadership: the credibility. Actually, the European allies said already that the agreement will not be renegotiated after the American withdraw. A similar thing will happen also when Trump, in all likelihood, will withdraw from the Iranian agreement, making it clear that international agreements for global challenges are what they are: multinational, and so one part, even if is the strongest one, cannot decide for all the rest. These two events also cast a light on the understanding of the current losing of appeal by democracies all over the world, being two very different expressions of the actions of a democracy and an autocracy: short term and long-term policies. But this is another story.

These two events, even if they will not have a tremendous impact at international level as it happens with total wars (like the world wars) or at domestic level with a revolution (like the Russian revolution in 1917) or the implosion of an empire (like the end of Soviet Union in 1991), represent two major symbolic political moments that future historians will probably remember as the start of 21st century, even more than 9/11. Because 9/11 represented rather the end of the unipolar moment, while the 2017, with the formalization of Brexit, the Trump policies of retreat from TPP and Climate agreements and China’s full step in globalization, marks the start of a multipolar century, with a new realignment: the moving of the pendulum back to Asia.

Nevertheless, there are two good news for all the nations of the planet, including America: the first is that the new world order, that will be organized more by China, will be based on economic means, not military ones. Security at international level will not see a policeman like it has been during the short unipolar moment, for the good and for the bad. The hope here is that with shared economic growth there will be less need of conflicts, at least interstate ones (unfortunately, the intrastate ones will probably continue for the time being). The second good news is that all the world, that is Eurasia, Africa and America, including the US, is welcome to participate in a new world order, in a convergent way. The world order coming from Asia, even if with some imperialist elements (at the end of the day the infrastructures will be paid by each countries with loans from China, so all countries will be in debt with China) will not be conflictual with the rest (as the Western world order has often be, from the colonial times to the neocolonial ones). All the major experts on China agree on a peaceful and benevolent rise of China. At one condition: that we trust China as possible ally and not on the contrary suspect her as a sure rival and enemy of the old liberal Western order. Otherwise the self-fulfilling prophecy of creating our own enemy will be realized. The Chinese domestic issues, including democratic practices, will take time to be dealt with, as culture matter. All this doesn’t mean that China will be always going up without problems, as in the humankind issues there are always trends and countertrends, and China will have its own internal social and political crisis and economic decline too…but not for some time yet.

The multipolar world already started and we are at a crossroads: we, the so called “West”, meaning the EU and the US (the UK for its own decision will not count much in the future world arena) must decide, if to accept the challenge of growing together, or trying to cling to an old order that is no more. Nothing is eternal, no empires are exempt from decline and no country or sets of countries can last more than a while as world leaders (we saw it through history). The West doesn’t need to give up the military superiority (even if always balanced by Russia) but it needs to accept that all major nations will want spheres of influence in their regions. We cannot cast our presence all over the world anymore, not only because of the imperial overstretching but because of the facts on the ground: there is a moment for everything and for everyone.

So what will be the future? There are two famous theories in International Relations theory regarding conflict or cooperation that can help us to try to foresee the future: the Thucydides trap and the Prisoner dilemma. If we will follow the path of the Thucydides Trap (with the typical Western mistrust) we could go to war with China[1]. If instead we will follow the path of the Iterated Prisoner Dilemma (with an atypical Western will to cooperate instead of dominating) we will go towards world prosperity with the return of Pax Sinica after two millennia[2] (and possibly with the inclusion of Islamic ethical values on brotherhood and the Indian and aboriginal ones on protection of mother nature). The first one is a path to disaster and despair, based on individual and national interests instead of global ones. The second one is a shared and consensual path, based on covenants and agreements, on diplomacy and trust between the American thalassocracy, that will still probably be in control of the seas, being in the middle of the oceans, and the Chinese tellurocracy, that will be the land based hegemon of the Eurasian mass, together with the other super power on the other end of the big continent, the EU. It is the convergence of civilizations (instead of the ill-fated clash) that we can build for this century and even may be millennia. Posterity (if there will be one before colonizing other planets) will judge.

The international shift from cooperation to conflict that the Trump “business” administration of America has made already, in just the first week, is based on the continuation of the former administration path but with opposite means. America keeps retreating in its isolationism because of the global disorder, but now with a conflicting attitude instead of a cooperative one, being led by a businessman after an educator. This at first sight seems dangerous and possibly causing an escalation of conflict against the US and even among states. Nevertheless in the longer view could also open space for the world actors to build individual paths and new alliances independently by the US hegemony. It is hard to be optimistic in difficult times but is when we most need.

From Mexico to China, from the EU to the Middle Eastern countries non-aligned with America, the US is saying today: I will reduce the collaborative relationship with you following only my interest, now you have to make the move if you want to compete with me or you are by yourselves. Mistrust and “prisoner dilemma” is what is expecting us: defection will get more result than collaboration in the protectionist and nationalist world that Trump wants to recreate. This is what we will see from Mexico reactions to the wall, to China retaliations to the possible trade war, from EU reactions to the American attacks (Trump defines the EU as the “consortium”), to Middle Eastern retaliations after the rejection of immigrants from the seven states that US consider “sponsors of terrorism”. Actually in reality these states instead of supporting Salafi and Jihadist terrorism (that is supported mostly by the Gulf monarchies) have been challenging the American model both politically and economically…that is why they are in the list even if intermittently since decades. So besides discriminating on religion and fomenting Islamophobia, it is evident that the ban is not at all for defending American territory as ISIS has a big presence in many other states, like Nigeria for example, and is not present at all in some of the seven states, like for example Iran.

This new process of conflict competition and aggressivity could escalate conflict with the US and even among countries themselves, not having the hegemonic presence of America that provide “public goods” like possible protections or “public threats” like possible attacks. But it could also open space for new actors to rise and fill the power vacuum in a competitive way and in new geopolitical trajectories: “If US is not there anymore, also because of its decline, we can do it by ourselves” will say the countries with world aspirations. China and India as leaders in Asia, Mexico and Brazil as leaders in Latin America, Iran and Turkey as leaders in the Middle East, are natural developments when the hegemon is not there anymore and so regional leaders for regional cooperation and integration could represent the next steps after the failure of globalization. Canada for example already step in as possible substitute of the US as leader of the democratic world, accepting the refugees that the US is rejecting and fighting against Islamophobia, and for that has been suddenly attacked by a white nationalist killing in a mosque.

So let’s see the bigger picture. After WWII the liberal order was guaranteed by the US and NATO, also thanks to the stability of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War the new instability and the multipolar (or zeropolar) world made the liberal global order impossible to retain, given the risk of imperial overstretching. Today we are witnessing the end of the Pax Americana as we are on a new path in this transition towards a new order: the US, together with the UK (being the two that created that order) are ending the liberal order, weakening international institutions and norms that they themselves created, pushing the international system back to its traditional “anarchy” and the nation states back to its traditional “power”, as major agents of international politics for its own interests. In political science, from the constructivist theories born in the second half of 20th century to understand modernity and postmodernity we are having today a revival of the traditional realist-rationalist approaches. But if we look closer this is not only the realist approach in international relations, it represents the extreme capitalist free market ideology applied to international politics: competition over cooperation. The ideas is that if you allow different actors to compete among themselves in an anarchic and conflicting system their talents, merits and capacities will come out and the system will grow consequentially. This is true but problem is that, in the international system as in the market, with a completely free competition without rules and norms protecting from the extremes, the strongest can crash the weakest, or to say it with Thucydides still valid after two millennia: “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”

So what we are witnessing with the new populism, nationalism and “conflictism” of Trump and also Teresa May, it is not only a political, economic and cultural shift, it is also an ideological and paradigmatic one: from cooperation we are passing to conflict as a legitimate tool of international relations, similar to the economic-materialist concept of Marx and Schumpeter of “creative destruction”. The creators are destroying what they created in order to reborn as new leaders in the future chaos. If this will have more positive or negative results in the long run it has to be seen. Much will depend if someone will take the lead in the meantime, in the creation of a new modern global order while the US and UK are busy destroying what remains of the old one. Hopefully if this will happen will be someone with cooperative and inclusive attitudes, because if history can teach something is that the belief in only the realist-rationalist-materialist approach, with conflict as “the great equalizer” and war as “continuation of politics with other means”, produced the most violent and inhumane century of humankind.

The new American presidency at domestic level

As we know the Roman Empire failed, as all the other great powers in human history, from implosion before than from invasion, from internal dysfunctions more than from external ones. So domestic situation is more important than the international one. Also Fukuyama (Political Order and Political Decay, 2014) famously argued that liberal democracy’s future is cloudy because of its own internal problems, not competition from any external opponent. Therefore today the US, coming out from a century of world supremacy, should recuperate its internal strength in order to keep this supremacy, not only at economic level but also at cultural and social level. And this is the discours of Trump, making America great again “for all Americans”. But in reality this discourse hide a manipulation of the disenfranchised people that will keep things as they are for them, or even worst at economic, political and social level. Much has been said about economic so let’s concentrate on social and political levels.

The social strength of a country is called “social capital”. In political science the social capital is one of the bases of democracy: it represent the level of networking, participation, reciprocity, cooperation and trust that make a society act together for the common good. Tocqueville noticed two centuries ago that in America the social capital was at a high level, because Americans were meeting at as many gatherings as possible to talk about politics, more than the people in the old continent. This increased the levels of transparency, participation and trust and so the social capital, which in turn allowed for democracy to work better. At the end of the day those were the times when the creation of the country was still fresh, two or three generations before, and so people were still eager to participate and fight for to the Res-publica, the “public thing”. But almost two century after the social capital is in a different situation in America. Already Putnam explained how isolation and lack of civic engagement reduced social capital in America, and a recent article on the last issue of the Journal of Democracy present that showing that not many people believe in real democracy in this country and act as a consequence anymore.

If we look deeper in this concept we see how the scholarship define three types of social capital, all needed for the good work of democracy: Bonding, that means inside a social group like family, friends, neighbors, race etc.; Bridging, among different groups, like cross-ethnic association, interreligious groups etc.; and Linking, among people and their government representatives, local authorities etc. While Obama was strong in creating Bridging and Linking social capital, Trump seems to wish to reinforce the Bonding social capital, inside a particular group of people. These people are not only the “descendent of the original pioneers”, the so called WASP, “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”, that are more traditionalist (with God, family and nation values of the Jacksonian tradition) conservative, uneducated and isolated, and that once were the “elite” and now feel threatened as an endangered species in the US because of the new immigrants, the new educated-intellectuals and in general the wave of progressivism during the last decades. They are also represented by the people (mostly WASP but not only) that have been “downgraded” and “declassified” either from a high income middle class to a lower income middle class or from a high income labor class to a lower income (or even unemployed) labor class, becoming in these way the antiestablishment disenfranchised people, the nourishment for populist and demagogues of all times and places. These are the same type of people that are causing the populist surge in the Western world. The Trump administration, respect to the Obama’s one, is here exactly to channelize this anger of people that from quite rich became less rich and that are living in what Pankaj Mishra defined “the age of anger”, to show in a post-deliberative post-intellectual democracy, and against professional politicians, what really means to deliberate and act fast and simple, even is synonym of superficial and divisive. The problem is that trying to unite only one part of population with the bonding narrative and without the other types of social capital, the bridging and linking ones, democracy doesn’t work, as democracy needs inclusiveness and trust in representation, while the bonding social capital create a tribal-clanistic democracy, in reality an oligarchy closed to the world and to the future, that is what America increasingly seems to have.

And here we come to the second point of this administration at domestic level, besides destroying the diversity of social fabric favoring only the bonding social capital of a “relative small” group. While the listening to the people could represent the “healthy populism”, to bring people back to politics, overcoming the risk of popular rebellion against the democratic institution, the fact that in reality Trump doesn’t listen to “all” people and doesn’t seem to have effective programs to reduce inequality and so address that anger, and instead is putting the administration in the hands of family, corporations and crony capitalism, is quite worrying. The reality is that the Trump administration is manipulating that anger in order to divide the 99% of people that have less than the 1%, breaking its possible social movement, eroding the political power of their representative and making the economic sphere stronger and with less control, without “problems” like climate change, critic press or international norms to disturb its business. Trump attacks politicians and state institutions, which are people’s representative, saying “people will retake their power” but what he really means is that “economy will retake its power” over politics and even the state. This is confirmed by his nominations of many business people in its administration, who come from Exxon, Goldman Sacks and other corporations or financial powers, and by the antidemocratic alt-right ideology of his senior counselor Steve Bannon. All this could lead to the final destruction of political and state power versus the economic one, with a stronger neoliberal uncontrolled economy and so more inequality.

But this process could lead also, as a reaction, to a grassroot bridging social capital with an alliance between classes, the poor and disenfranchised labor class, the excluded and not listened minorities (including women, latinos and blacks) and the middle class of professionals, scientists and intellectuals, that is only possibility for any successful “revolution”. Also, the erosion of democratic insitutions, again as a reaction, could lead to a grassroot linking social capital between citizens and their representatives, that could join forces to recuperate the democratic norms and the institutional political power over the economic one. Already the recent Women’s march and the protest against the immigrations ban as well as the institutions refusing to follow Presidents decisions (like the federal judge in Seattle who temporarily blocked Trump’s immigration order), represent signs in that direction.

So we don’t know yet but in a relative short time, that means in this year 2017, we will see where US politics and society is headed. We will see soon if democratic institutions, besides social capital and political sphere, will be eroded to a critical point of autocracy and social division like it happened in Venezuela or Turkey. We will see soon if the final assault of unregulated market and neoliberal forces will increase the inequality or there will be as a reaction a more “European” America, with a welfare state balancing that inequality. And we will see soon if there will be an American decline on the international arena and the final end of Pax Americana or an American Renaissance, may be together with China or even Russia. Remembering two famous sentences of the worst times of our human history we will see soon if the Americans will still be able to say, as the 1935 political novel by Sinclair Lewis, “It can’t happen here”, or will instead say, as Martin Niemoller recited during Nazism, “First they came for the socialist, but I was not a socialist…”

Italians voted no to the proposition of institutional and constitutional reforms, which was agreed by the Italian Parliament for the first time after almost 70 years since the “Costituente”. The Italian Parliament was following the strong acceleration of a post-ideological modern Government, again the first of such governments in Italian recent history. But in a time of increased transparency, empowered individuals and bottom-up democratic tools (first of all the use of referendums) the confidence of some Western leaders to appeal to popular support in order to increase their legitimacy has turned to be a big mistake. From Cameron to Renzi, leaders European leaders believed that they could bring the people on the ship of their vision for the future. But they forgot about one thing: the deep culture and identity of their societies. Exceptionalism for British people and conservatism for Italians. Who will be next? We hope no Merkel even if we are not so sure (Hollande avoided such risk with his recent decision to not seek re-election).

Italians don’t like change, they live in open sky museums, adore their traditions and have a culture of self-governance and “make do” that survive better in government instability than in the opposite scenarios. Italians, even if they always criticize the politicians for being corrupted and not wanting to change, prefer weak corrupt governments that keep the things as they have always been (that’s why Berlusconi reigned for around a generation) than strong stable governments that could really change the things, including asking the citizens to behave. Besides that, Italians have always been afraid of Communism, before with Fascism demonization and after with the one of Christian Democracy, making a left or liberal government, almost impossible to survive for long time in the country. That, together with the economic stagnation and the manipulation of information in a post-truth, post-fact society, fueled by opposite politicians with a hate narrative rarely seen before, made the result of referendum. But how Italian referendum result enters in the long run of Western liberal democratic crisis?

As said in the previous article on the US, the three “Ps” are very evident also in Italy: increased Poverty, with inequality and intellectual unemployment (involving in particular the middle class); extreme Polarization, in particular between nationalist and cosmopolitanists (not much between Leftist and Rightist that is not anymore the real division of the socio-political spectrum in Western democracies); and spread Populism, or anti-establishment feelings (in particular distrust for corrupted and distant elites). These phenomena are growing in the Italian society since almost a decade. Since more less the Euro consequences (in particular the raised prices) started to couple with the economic crisis, the social media technology started to empower individuals and at the same time superficialize and polarize them, and the populist feelings started to be fed in particular by the 5 Star Movement birth, apparently bottom up but behind the scene with the Big Brother approach, already in 2005 with around 40 “Friends of Beppe Grillo” Meetups (using the American born Meetup idea).

Besides these “first layer” reasons the democratic crisis in Italy can be seen also as an identity crisis, as said in the article on US, because of increasing immigration, women empowerment and international integration. Italy, like the rest of Western rich countries, started to be afraid of having to share the wealth with poorer people, first of all economic migrants but also refugees, and risk its identity dilution with the creation of a melting pot society (and in the last 3 years the number of immigrants in Italy increased exponentially with the Middle Eastern refugee crisis). Italian men, ruling the country, its families and its society since the Latin times (similarly to the rest of Europe) started to be afraid of having to share the power with women (and this actually was the first government that among other things had 50% of women). And the Italian nation state in itself, existing since 4 century (since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648) started to be afraid of having to reduce its sovereignty with new supranational actors, first of all the EU (this was one of the most pro-EU governments, accepting the decisions from the EU even if using the rhetoric of anti-austerity) reducing therefore its ontological security.

Therefore in Italy as in the US we are on the right track towards the democratic natural crisis. We need to see how we use this crisis for the good and not for the bad, not only in Italy but in Europe. Even in the worst case scenario that the EU will fail and disintegrate in a decade or so what is important is to know who will take the lead for future new alliances and integration processes. We will not have a pre-WWII scenario because of economic integration and because Russia will always be there to make European continent cohesive (hopefully with the constant support of NATO). But as a recent article on Foreign Affairs said: “Populism is gaining ground. Around the world, economic hardship and growing unease with globalization, immigration, and the established elite have propelled such movements into power, leading to a groundswell of public support for parties and leaders viewed as capable of holding the forces of cultural and social change at bay.”[1]

What we know is that strong leaders will not make a democratic renaissance against the establishment, as they promise, on the opposite they will deepen the democratic crisis, gradually eroding the liberal elements of our countries, as expert populists around the world from Chavez, to Erdogan to Putin, showed. This is the risk in our liberal Western democracies crisis too, at least until the citizens will not take back the lead of the future in their hands through their civil society, with new associations, movements, parties and organizations at grassroots level, and not lead from top-down. The political establishment has to be checked and controlled by these civil society associations to reduce corruption and increase vision, but cannot disappear as representative democracies needs politicians. Otherwise you have fake “direct democracies” that hide what they really are: autocracies, or as Plato said about the failing of democracy: new tyrannies.

Eric Hobsbawm defined the 19th century as “The Long Nineteenth Century”, starting in 1789 and ending in 1914, and the 20th century as the “The Short Twentieth Century”, from 1914 to 1991. In reality also the 20th century could be considered a “long century”, at least in its conception and its heritage: we can say that it started in 1865, with the civil war and the end of slavery in America (the strongest democratic step since its independence for the most powerful country of 20th century) and ended definitely in 2016, when an American President visited Cuba, 88 years after the last one, and Fidel Castro died, almost 60 years after its Cuban Revolution. These events marked the final end of the ideological cold war, the planetary confrontation between capitalism and communism, which represented the history of the second part of 20th century.

All people under oppression appealed to a liberation ideology for a revolution against the status quo since the beginning of times. Revolutions bring dignity and self-determination to people, and they have been liberating people from oppression in every corner of the planet. But revolutions in their aftermath has difficulty to realize the dream of a idealistic society and they risk to even distort the original ideals (sometimes as a need to defend from external attacks) and build authoritarian regimes, as history shows from French revolution with Napoleon dictatorship to American Revolution with black slavery, from Iranian revolution to the Arab Spring. Fidel Castro, like all the revolutionaries, was a freedom fighter for his people, and actually he declared just after the revolution that he would have started finally a democracy in Cuba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjpnfDwWd7Y) but then became another Prince, the enlightened tyrant who believes in the utopia that a society can be guided from top down for the good of the people. Actually while many Cuban policies had good effect, like high levels of public education and health, the development of the country for the end of people poverty failed, in particular after the end of the Soviet Union. So today the Cuban regime needs to find a new model, may be the Chinese one with state capitalism, if it wants to survive.

The revolutions are important for the self-determination of people in the short term but they are not enough for their democratic and economic flourishing in the long term. As we political scientists knows, it is the constant and progressive reforms towards an inclusive and empowering economic and political system that brings real human liberation in the history of humankind. Gorbacev attempted to reform Sovietic communism to make it more legitimate, efficient and sustainable as ideology and system, and even if he failed he opened the space on the right track. When Putin will die (as it seems that he will not leave the power before that) that path will have to be retaken if Russia wants to go towards real modernization and development. Same for Cuba after the end of the old guard, or Iran, after the end of Ayatollah regime, as well as the other countries that failed to democratize with the Arab Spring or are still monarchies like Saudi Arabia.

This doesn’t meant though that all countries have to follow exactly the Western style liberal democracies for a future of “End of history”, as Fukuyama believed. Actually culture matters and also the liberal representative democracies of the Western world will need reforms to survive and flourish anyway. Democracy and human liberation, equality and inclusion are never ending processes, as we can see from the Roman Republic two millennia and half ago to the election of Trump in a divided democratic American society. And, most important, democracy and human liberation has to be authoctonous, coming from an internal evolution of a country, with its traditional systems, cultural elements and historical approaches. There is no one solution fits it all, as the “one person one vote” of the universal suffrage is an historical evolution of European individual rights against the old tyranny of the nobility, but other geographies and histories have to develop their own way of social contract and political representation, that could be more communitarian than individualistic.

As Castro said once “ideas don’t need arms if they convince masses” and also “who doesn’t believe in the human being is not a revolutionary”. So we need to have faith in human beings to change the status quo for a better future and to do that today we don’t need arms if we have ideas: armed revolutions are a tool of the past, when people had less power of today, when we can use education and technology, as we saw with the Arab Spring and we can see in Cuba already with the arrival of internet. Today what we need are new unarmed revolutions, that is “revolutions of ideas”, both in democracies and in autocracies, to face the fast and complex globalization and the risk for the human societies to become more divided, unequal and chaotic. Inequality and exclusion are the cancer of democracies as well as autocracies and to overcome them we will have to make in Western democracies as in non-Western autocracies many political, economic and social reforms, to reach a higher civic education, a more inclusive development, and a more effective governance. We need new ideas and forms to reduce economic inequality, minorities’ exclusion and extreme polarization. We need to fight the risk of populism and make democracies more efficient and sustainable in the long run and autocracies more open societies in a globalized world. We need new leaders and new intellectuals, but also empowered masses, for revolutions of ideas more than armed revolutions.

If Hobsbawn might have been wrong in the definition of “Short Century” he was right on the risks for the future. As he said: “If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present. If we try to build the third millennium on that basis, we shall fail. And the price of failure, that is the alternative to a changed society, is darkness.” (The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991, 1994).